Would You Hire Kavanaugh?

The Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he began his testimony on Thursday.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York Times

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

Think of the Brett Kavanaugh nomination this way:

A president who has faced at least a dozen allegations of sexual assault is attempting to appoint a second Supreme Court justice who has credibly been accused of sexual misconduct, and those two justices might well help form a new court majority to chip away at abortion rights in the United States.

I don’t pretend to know precisely what happened in the various incidents Kavanaugh is accused of. But this I know: When a man has a cloud over him, of multiple sexual assault allegations and of lies that come close to perjury, and when that man’s defenders refuse to allow a thorough investigation, that person should not be elevated to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.

Yet without any serious investigation, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Friday to recommend Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Senate Republican leaders then agreed to a limited F.B.I. investigation taking no more than a week, which is encouraging, but may still be inadequate, or simply ignored. What is clear is that Kavanaugh has moved a step closer to the Supreme Court.

Hold on!

Kavanaugh’s defenders are right that the Supreme Court confirmation process has been politicized. Any doubts, just ask “Justice Merrick Garland.”

But it’s not obvious that Christine Blasey Ford is playing a political role. She tried to alert the authorities to her allegations before Kavanaugh was picked, so that the White House could choose some other conservative on its list without such a past.

For now we can’t be certain who’s telling the truth, but it’s absurd for Republican senators to say that the evidence against Kavanaugh is weak when they block an investigation to gather evidence.

In any case, women have everything to lose when they challenge a nominee. Remember when Anita Hill was mocked as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty” for speaking up about Clarence Thomas? Senate Republicans might note, with a little humility, that subsequent reporting has pretty much confirmed that Hill was telling the truth and that Thomas was lying.

It would be a tragedy if Kavanaugh similarly were confirmed only to have further evidence become public. If a third of the men on the Supreme Court had a history of sexual misconduct, what would that do to the legitimacy of the institution?

Of course, if Kavanaugh drank as much as some of his former associates suggest — he denies that — then he himself may not have clear memories of what he did. Or to him, it all may have been an awkward adolescent game, soon forgotten, even as to Blasey it was a terrifying assault.

Entitled men have a remarkable ability to be oblivious to the damage they inflict. In surveys, when men are asked whether they have ever had sex with a woman or girl without her consent, a surprising number cheerfully say they have, without considering themselves rapists. They simply perceive themselves as fun-loving guys in a hunting game in which a “no” can be vitiated with alcohol and muscular assertiveness; they leave smirking and the women leave traumatized.

The way to end such assaults is to replace impunity with accountability. That’s fundamentally what is at stake with the Kavanaugh nomination: Will we ignore serious, credible allegations and give a powerful man a pass, or will we at least try to ferret out the truth?

It is sometimes said flatly that women don’t lie, but that’s not quite right. Think of the Duke lacrosse case or the University of Virginia rape case. Then again, the evidence is that women mostly should be believed: Studies have concluded that between 2 percent and 10 percent of allegations of rape are false.

Yes, it’s still possible that Kavanaugh is the victim of a character assassination or mistaken identity. Liberals should remember a basic lesson of our flawed criminal justice system: Well-meaning eyewitnesses make mistakes all the time, and memory plays terrible tricks.

Likewise, when Kavanaugh was asked about his yearbook claim to be a “Renate Alumnius,” referring to a girl of that name, he pretended that there was no sexual insinuation. Huh? Anyone who was ever a high-school boy can assure you that this was a sexual boast. On that, clearly Kavanaugh was lying.

Kavanaugh also flatly lied about the drinking age, saying that he was legally allowed to drink beer as a high school senior. In fact, when he was 17 the drinking age was raised to 21.

On the assault charges, let’s avoid a rush to judgment, but also a rush to confirmation. Let’s investigate. Call more witnesses. Get the F.B.I. to investigate, as it did in the Anita Hill case, without any tight time constraint. Kavanaugh shouldn’t be confirmed with this cloud hanging over him.

This is not a criminal trial but a job interview. People often are not hired for jobs because of unproven concerns about their background. Sometimes this is unfair. But one would have to feel enormously entitled — an echo of the male entitlement that fueled the alleged assaults — to demand a job without a rigorous investigation.

Few of us would hire a man who lied and is under a cloud from multiple sexual assault allegations. And if a man’s character doesn’t qualify him for other jobs, then how can he be elevated to the Supreme Court to sit in judgment for life over women and men alike?

Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The Times since 2001, and was a longtime foreign correspondent before that. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. @NickKristof•Facebook